


A Heart Reborn

by nonbinaryGhost



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Abandonment, Burning alive, Drowning, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:48:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28308552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonbinaryGhost/pseuds/nonbinaryGhost
Summary: “Will it hurt?”Yes. The words paused. Then-All of you will be burned away. Your hopes, your dreams, your essence. I will know your memories but they will not be mine. Everything you are will be consumed by the scarlet flame.It will hurt.I am sorry, Child, but I cannot change this.Do you still accept?
Comments: 3
Kudos: 31





	A Heart Reborn

**Author's Note:**

> So, I wrote this a while ago when I was super preoccupied with the creation of the first Grimm. In short, a moth abandoned by the Radiance and his people makes a deal with the forgotten heart of dreams.  
>  This is a bit of a heavy drabble that deals with themes of hopelessness and loss. Please proceed with care if any of the above tags cause stress/anxiety.

The lanky moth collapsed into a heap on the rough stone floor, too exhausted to move further. Wind howled lonely at the mouth of the small cave he’d found, but for now he was safe from the scouring sands and empty wastes. He lay on the floor of the cave amongst dry leaves and coarse sand, his breath shallow as it echoed in his ears to fill the silence.

The awful silence.

With a small noise of despair, the moth curled in on himself, wrapping his wings tight as he shook, as if their dusty gold and white drapings could hold him together as his world fell apart. He was alone now, truly alone, and the ringing silence in his mind felt like a gaping hole in the center of his being. Where once there had been the soft murmurings and singing of other moths and the warm golden glow of his goddess, there was now nothing but deafening silence and cold darkness. Why? Why had they turned away from him? He’d tried to feel the Dream, to be content in the Radiance’s light. He had wanted so much to be one with the song that rose and fell with the golden light in his people’s thoughts. But his mind could never rest in those pleasant dreams and hopes. It always wandered to the suffering of the scared and the hurt. There were so many who hurt, who feared. The pain of loss, the fear of death, it all stained the very edges of the dream he’d once shared with his people, and his heart broke in sympathy for them, for those who suffered in silence just as he. But he’d tried to ignore those feelings. He tried to mask the rising fear inside of him that he must be flawed in some way to be so preoccupied with such unpleasant thoughts.

And yet…

Yet, despite his efforts, his voice had become a discordant note in the Radiance’s melody, a dark stain on their shared dream. And so they’d driven him away. They abandoned him to the darkness and fear.

Tears burned his eyes as he clutched at the sharp ache in his chest.

Maybe he was broken.

As the moth lay in the cold sand and refuse of a wasteland, he considered never rising again. He could just lie there and let it all end. Let the bitter wind steal his breath. Let the gritty sand bury him. Let the wandering, mindless bugs of the wastes find him, bite him, bleed him. His disappearance a good riddance to all he had once called family.

A broken voice no one wanted to hear.

A lost moth forever banished from the Radiance’s light.

Exhaustion and misery blanketed him, eventually dragging him into a fitful sleep filled with the images of the scornful faces of those who had driven him from his home. In his dreams, they watched him indifferently as he struggled to keep his head above churning black waves, their faces a distant light far overhead. They all waited to see what this unworthy moth might do, to see if he had the strength to rise from the cold water, the courage to face what was ahead.

He did not.

A large black wave crashed over him and pulled him deeper under the turbulent waters. The light vanished immediately and he sank, flailing feebly at the cold pressure as he choked on the salty liquid. His motions slowed as he fell. Was this not what he wanted? A quiet oblivion? Death was easier, and in this endless nightmare, far less painful to consider than a life of exile.

He gave in to the black waters.

But as he sank deeper, a strange red light began to bleed into the darkness. The moth lifted his head warily as he drifted to the bottom of this dark sea of despair. He settled gently on the ground’s soft surface and he found he could again breathe. The pressure of the water remained heavy against his chest, but it did not choke him to take it in and he took a slow, almost disappointed breath.

Red light pooled around him, pushing away the darkness and warming his chilled limbs. That light felt so familiar, warm and comforting like the Radiance’s glow, but softer. A faint, steady thrumming could just be heard under the moth’s breathing, and he blinked, glancing around in confusion. Was this another nightmare?

_You poor child._

The words were a mere whisper in the moth’s thoughts, weak but gentle. He went still at the sorrow behind the sound.

_How could We turn Our light from you? You needed Us so desperately, and We turned away…_

The moth realized that the words came at the same slow beat of the strange thrumming in his ears. He laboriously pushed himself up to his hands and knees, cocking his head as he searched for the source of the sound.

“Who speaks?” He asked aloud, his voice smothered by the water still in his lungs.

_The Heart of We who abandoned you._

Confusion made the moth’s antennae twitch. Was this one of their lost kin? Another moth here to offer sympathy? No. No, the feeling of this red light so warm against his fur, the soft presence in his mind…

“Radiance?” he breathed, a flicker of hope flaring in his chest.

_Not as such,_ whispered the words, and the moth felt the flame of hope turn to ash on his tongue. The voice continued: _A part of Her. One We scorn and abandon just as We do you. We are part of the same whole, but She who calls herself Radiance smothers Us here in solitude as She ignores the suffering of Our people._

The moth’s head spun but he did not have the heart to try to understand. That briefest flutter of hope that his goddess had not abandoned him had filled him with such pure light, had made his heart soar. But now that hope was extinguished with a cruel certainty, and the despair came crushing back. Was he truly lost then? Alone, abandoned, voiceless, forever scorned from his goddess’s light with no hope for redemption?

“Why am I here?” he whispered as he stared down at his hands pressed against the strange quilt-like ground.

_We – **I** heard your pleas for oblivion. I cannot save you from your fate, Dear Child, but I can at least spare you from it._

The moth lifted his head at this, his heart fluttering in his chest.

_I can offer you the oblivion you seek. Your memories, your thoughts, your mind – they can all become a part of me, and you will be free. Gone, without any lingering dreams or regrets to keep your mind tethered to this place._

_What I offer you is not peace, Child, but destruction. A true oblivion._

The moth considered this. He knew that death did not always mean peace. He had walked the dreams of those lingering regrets, fears, and hopes left by the dead. He did not want to stay in this world in any form. His dreams were naught but nightmares, his regrets many. He did not deserve any form of afterlife, even as the faintest echo of his mind, nor did he want it. True oblivion…

“What is your price?”

_Your shell,_ whispered the beating heart. _Become a part of me. I will use your body and memories to fully separate from the Radiance. For too long We have abandoned our children to despair – no longer. It can end with you. Become my vessel, and I will take in every lost and broken soul, and cleanse the lands of the flames of fear and pain. You will have the oblivion you so crave, and your empty shell will serve to consume the misery of the living._

“I could help others like me?” the moth asked in wonder. By accepting this offer, he could create a home for those his people abandoned? The feeling of hope in his chest grew at the thought of no one suffering as he has ever again. “You would take them in?”

_Every soul scorned by the Radiance’s Light will find a home in the Heart's._

A quiver of emotion fluttered the moth’s gold-spotted wings and he pressed a hand over the pounding of his heart. It beat fast, out of sync with the slow, languid thrumming still in his thoughts. He considered this offer carefully. Was this really what he wanted? Did he truly want to cease to exist? If he refused, could he seek out a new life somewhere? Find others turned away from his goddess’s light, and build a new home? He knew not if he had the strength to do so. The emptiness in his chest choked him. Anguish threatened to drown him. There could be no home like the one he lost. There was nothing in the wastes but sand and mindless bugs – nothing like the light and song and love of his Goddess and his people. But there had to be others like him, others whose nightmares and fears had driven them from the Radiance’s light. He had seen their dark stains on the Dream. Were they lost out here too, as alone and empty as he?

Despair exhausted, rage flooded in to the small moth, making his heart pound harder.

How dare the Radiance treat her children so cruelly. She had no right to abandon them so. Were they not all Her children? Were they not all deserving of the promise of love and protection? His hands clenched into fists against the quilted ground as that emotion thundered through him, one he’d fought so hard to suppress for the entirety of his life. The rage pounded in his chest, swirling with the lingering despair still pressing down on him. He could change that, could change the fates of those like him. He could give the lost children of the Old Light a home. And for what? A quiet oblivion – one he already sought and longed for as deeply as he missed the light.

It was hardly a question.

“I accept your offer.”

A sharp flare of scarlet light burst to life before the moth and he flinched as a massive, beating heart filled his vision. He fell back on his hands as he craned his neck, trying to see the entirety of the red heart, but the edges of the shape were lost to shadow far overhead. The warmth of the red light intensified against his wings at the heart’s nearness. The moth rose unsteadily and cautiously approached the heart, his eyes locked on the bleeding gash seeping tongues of crimson flame that severed the center of that heart. The slow, beating thrum that had whispered at the edges of his mind filled his thoughts now, and he could see the heart beating in time to the sound. 

_There is no coming back,_ warned the soft voice of the Heart. _Enter the flames only if you truly wish for the oblivion I offer._

He paused at the edge of the flickering scarlet flames, staring up at the massive red heart.

“Will it hurt?”

_Yes._ The words paused. Then- _All of you will be burned away. Your hopes and fears, your dreams and sorrows, your very essence. I will know your memories but they will not be mine. Everything you are will be consumed by the scarlet flame._

_It will hurt._

_I am sorry, Child, but I cannot change this._

_Do you still accept?_

Fear was the faintest flutter in the moth’s chest, but no thoughts of hesitation crossed his mind. Chin raised, he stepped straight into the open wound in the bleeding heart.

Scarlet flames roared in his vision, their scorching heat beyond anything he could have ever expected. Blinding pain seared through him and he opened his mouth in a scream, pulling the flames into his lungs and burning his throat, destroying his once beautiful voice. He took that pain deep into himself, offering no resistance as it tore into his mind. One by one, every memory was consumed by those scarlet flames – his mother’s pride when he first sang, the pain of a broken wing, the despair of his brother’s death at the hands of illness, the fear of abandonment, the rage at the Radiance for turning her back on him and his fellow lost kin – the memories, everything he was, rose to the surface of his mind to be scoured away by cleansing fire. And he welcomed it. Fed it every part of himself until there was nothing left.

The flames burned away the moth’s pale white and gold wings, turning them into thick leathery things of black and red. The mane of fur around his neck vanished in a burst of crimson, and the flames coursed down every limb, burning, changing, until the bug that had entered the heart was no more. The world became a sea of red and pain. Then…

Nothing.

The moth awoke in that lonesome cave slowly, his eyes opening to reveal irises that burned with a scarlet fire. He sat up tentatively, leathery wings splayed awkwardly around him. Confusion lay heavy in his thoughts and he stared down at his hands…hands? He flexed the clawed finders experimentally, feeling the way the glossy black shell and shifting joints moved. The Nightmare Heart smiled then, the expression feeling unnatural but right, somehow, and he stood on shaking legs. He could hear the pounding of the Heart in his ears, strong and steady, and he turned towards the cave’s entrance. He wrapped his warm, leathery wings around himself as he marveled at this vessel, this new form that finally freed him from the Radiance’s shackles.

He was Him, now. Not an Us, not a We, not a part of the lying Dream that turned away from the suffering of the world. He was Himself at last, a being all his own. A laugh, filled with elation, rumbled from his ruined throat.

He was free.

**Author's Note:**

> I originally posted this to tumblr and stumbled back across it today. Hope y'all enjoyed!


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